Paul on Homosexuality

From E.P. Sanders' Paul:

Homosexual activity: Paul was against homosexuality, both active and inactive, both male and female. This marks him as Jewish. Since homosexuality in the Greco-Roman world is not widely understood, I shall first lay out the issue.

There was no condemnation of sexual relations with a person of the same sex simply because of the sameness. Far from homosexual attraction and activity being condemned, in some circles there were positively valued as part of educational and cultural life. In classical Athens, for example, it was thought that a boy or youth should be honorably courted by a man, who should desire to lead him into wisdom and bravery. The man was also expected to desire the boy sexually. The young made body was generally regarded as the greatest beauty in nature, and therefore as highly desirable. If the man was worthy, he inspired in the boy not eros, sexual desire, but philos, love without lust. The boy, motivated by philos, might grant the man’s desire, but preferably intercourse took place only between the thighs, with no penetration. Further, the taboo held that the boy should not himself enjoy the physical aspect.

How often this chaste ideal was met we cannot know, and certainly there were many abuses, which were themselves condemned by pagans. But we note, first, that homosexuality of this sort was, at least sometimes, idealized and favorably evaluated. Even in Rome, where this particular aesthetic theory did not hold sway, it was regarded as normal for an adult male to desire boys. Homosexual activity, like any form of sex, was sometimes satirized, and some seductions were even against the law, but nevertheless there was no general condemnation. This sets Greco-Roman culture off sharply from Jewish culture.

Secondly, we note the reservation about penetration. The general view was that it was shameful for a male to be the passive partner. Even if a boy granted his adult lover the full favor in his youth, he should grow up to take the active role. In classical Athens, for an adult male to be passive was a bar to the exercise of citizenship. Slaves could serve as passive partners, and of course so could women. The Greeks and Romans despised effeminacy in men. It seems that the strength of this taboo weakened in the later Roman period, but it was strong enough in the first century for there to be ridicule of even Julius Caesar for playing the passive role. When Curio quipped that Caesar was “every woman’s husband and every man’s wife”, the ridicule was in part directed at his general promiscuity, but the real bite comes in the second half: with men Caesar took the woman’s role. One more example: Seneca ridiculed a wealthy man because he kept a handsome slave who was dressed like a woman when he waited at table, but became the man in private. What drew comment was that the master rather than the salve played the passive role in sex.

It is a curiosity of human behavior that the active partner, though he may have disgraced his passive lover—making him like a slave or woman—shared none of the blame. (Modern society is equally hypocritical about prostitution.) In the Roman world men were expected to be sexually active, and they had little to fear from public opinion, or from the malice of friends and confidants, if they engaged in homosexual activity on the giving rather than the receiving end.

We have much less information about female homosexuality. We hear of one woman who shaved her head and who bragged about how many women she could have each day. Her behavior was not applauded, probably because of her aggressive assumption of the male role.

Jews, looking at the Gentile world, saw it as full of porneia, sexual sin of all sorts, and homosexuality was a prime case. They condemned it lock, stock, and barrel. This is emphasized in the Bible (for example, Lev. 18:22) and repeated in subsequent Jewish literature. In the Letter of Aristeas (written by an Egyptian Jew in the second century BCE) we read that most non-Jewish men defile themselves by homosexual intercourse and that “whole countries and cities pride themselves upon such vices” (Letter of Aristeas 152f.). The Jewish Sibylline Oracle 2:73 contains the prohibition me arsenokoitein, literally “do not bugger males”, putting the activity on a par with extortion and murder. We note that it is the active role which is condemned. Philo, in a substantial discussion of sexual sins, lists homosexuality as next to bestiality in gravity. Making love to boys, pederasty (to paiderastein), is common in Gentile society, and Philo especially complains that men boast not only of the active but also of the passive role. There then follows a full description of the wiles and seductive manner of passive males. He points out that the law, that is, Moses’s law, provides death as the penalty for the male who dresses like a woman; he adds, “the lover of such (ho paiderastes) may be assured that he is subject to the same penalty” (Special Laws 3:37-42). Again, there is condemnation even of the active male.

So, when we turn to Paul, we are not surprised that he condemns all homosexual activity, nor that he specifies both the active and the passive partners. Out of an excess of modesty some English translations do not precisely render 1 Corinthians 6:9. The RSV has “sexual perverts” and the NEB “homosexual perversion”. The Jerusalem Bible correctly has “catamites” and “sodomites”. Paul names both the effeminate partner, the malakos, “soft” one, and the active one, the arsenokoitis. Some scholars propose that the words are uncertain as to meaning and thus that perhaps Paul did not really condemn homosexuality. The words, however, are quite clear. “Soft” was a common term for the passive partner, and nothing could be more explicit than “one who buggers males”. We noted the word in the Sibylline Oracle 2:73, and both that passage and Paul’s reflect the terminology of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13: meta arsenos koiten, “he who has coitus with a male”. In another passage, Romans 1:26-7, Paul condemns both male and female homosexuality in blanket terms and without any distinctions.

…In short, the two condemnations of homosexuality show that he applied to his Gentile converts the standards of Judaism. Naturally he found them wanting: “such were some of you” (1 Cor. 6:11). We see here a conflict between the Jewish apostle and his Gentile followers.